Ebert reiterates: "Games are not art."

Jaelus

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HeartlessNinny said:
Anything with rules, objectives, etc cannot be art.
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Literature is art and also has rules. Literary works have defined structures and objectives deliberately created to actively engage and manipulate the reader, knowing that the reader will be absorbing the content in a certain way. Choose your own adventure type books expand on this idea of engagement further by making the reader even more of an active participant in the story.

If I had to define what art is, I would say the defining feature is that it is content created for the purpose of deliberately affecting the observer's emotional state. In that sense it has to do with the creator's intent. Video games can be art sometimes, just like anything else.
 
ViewtifulZFO

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Anything you say is art, can be art.

The word has no objective definition, and thus, anything can be art that I want to be art.

Or, you might say that if there's no answer (which there obviously isn't), the question didn't make any sense in the first place.

But I can give you a definition, if you want: a game is "art" if it is "good".

THE END
 
BobbyPeru

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Jaelus said:
If I had to define what art is, I would say the defining feature is that it is content created for the purpose of deliberately affecting the observer's emotional state. In that sense it has to do with the creator's intent. Video games can be art sometimes, just like anything else.
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That's as good a definition of art as any I have ever heard, and it's also what most artists will tell you.

Just look at all the different forms art takes today; painting, sculpture, literature, performance art, art with "living components"...

Art is anything. Ebert's just being confrontational.
 
evil wasabi

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Not just anything can be art. What happens in nature is not art, despite being beautiful. But some games are art.

Some paintings are not art.

Some music are not music.
 
BobbyPeru

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Which paintings are not art? Corporate art?

Can a painting unintentionally become art based on the way the viewer interprets it, or must the artist intend to create art?
 
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Is Art of War art? Or does that refer to the wars and not the book?
 
Raizen1984

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Why do people care, anyway? Games are great entertainment. Not everything needs to be art to have value.
 
ViewtifulZFO

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Raizen1984 said:
Why do people care, anyway? Games are great entertainment. Not everything needs to be art to have value.
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Well, if you want to affirm your hobby as something more than a childish diversion, I would imagine that you would want to call games "art" to validate yourself.
 
BobbyPeru

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I can't really think of any games that caused me to seriously consider any grand ideas, or really affected me emotionally (except maybe FF2 :) ), but then again, I haven't played most of the modern games which are more story heavy.
 
SouthtownKid

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Raizen1984 said:
Why do people care, anyway? Games are great entertainment. Not everything needs to be art to have value.
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The point is not that it HAS to be art. The point is to question the possibility that any game even has the POTENTIAL to be art. Ever.

It's one of the things I find very irritating in life: when someone who is not artistic and is in fact incapable of creating art themselves tries to define what art is for everyone. As if trying to compensate for their own lack by exerting their will over people who actually are creative. Haha, no. Sorry. With a side order of fuck you thrown on top.


For example, take Silent Hill 2. I'd call it art. If movies can be art, and something David Lynch writes and directs can be considered art -- and they can -- then how does something like Silent Hill 2 not qualify? It evokes mood, it has texture, it tells a story. And if music can be considered art -- and it can -- then at the very least, the soundtracks for those first couple Silent Hill games must themselves also be considered as candidates for being art.
 
RabbitTroop

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The true problem with his argument is that he approaches art as if only the masterpiece, only the master work need qualify a segment as an art form. His actual words on the matter are, "No one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great poets, filmmakers, novelists and poets." Of course, this is a fallacy and many people, including Sangtiago in the example he gives, does just that. They are setting out to show that games have reached a form of expression that labels them as art. I still don't buy his argument nor his definition. If we do, then what Ebert is telling us is that until someone says this is art, it is not art. What I'm a bit confused on is if once we've passed that threshold; once we've decided that games are art, do all games become art? It seems so silly, but that is the argument he is looking to make.

Truth be told, it really is just a horrible ploy for attention to his blog. It's controversy for controversy's sake. He admits he doesn't have the experience, nor has he spent or found a game worth spending time on. If I were to argue the same, I could say opera isn't art, as I've never found one that was worth my suffering through. If we say story telling, music, painting and images are art, then how could the culmination of those things be anything less? Do they some how degrade into excess by their overindulgence? The argument is so fool hearted and poorly thought out that it could be nothing more than a cheap trick to garner some attention.
 
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if you were to uppercut ebert, would you be punching the roof of his mouth?
 
NeoTheranthrope

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Lochlan

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The answer:

"Can Games be Art?", and other Childish Nonsense by Alex Kierkegaard

An excerpt:

The problem lies with the words "game" and "art". If you type these words into a number of online dictionaries you will get several dozen definitions, which fact should immediately make you suspicious of whether there is any generally accepted definition at all. The short answer is there isn't. Some of mankind's greatest minds have tried defining what a game is and failed, while on the other hand the word "art" is used in so many different contexts that the only thing we are expected to understand when someone refers to something as art is that they are praising it. Like "democracy" and "terrorism", two other popular words that have yet to be clearly defined (and probably never will), the word "art" is often used in a consciously dishonest way. Again from Orwell:

"The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning."

So getting back to the question "Can games be art?" (which to make sense of we now read as "Can games be good?"), the only acceptable answer to this question would be, "Of course, and so can anything." Music, movies and even food can be art (but only good music, movies and food). Books can be art (but only good books, and we even have a fancy name for them: we call them Literature). War can be art (The Art of War). Sex can be art (The Art of Love). Even my cock can be art when I am in the right mood, et cetera, et cetera.
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I think Hideo Kojima summed it up best. To paraphrase, games are not art, because they are made with the express purpose of entertaining the player, and all other goals must be subservient to that one, in order for it to be a good game. Art can exist solely for its own sake. A game must be fun, first and foremost. Movies and theatre and music can be completely self-indulgent twaddle that no one would ever want to partake of, but still be art. Conversely, a shitty game is a shitty game, no matter what labels you try to stick on it.
 
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Late

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Deuce said:
I think Hideo Kojima summed it up best. To paraphrase, games are not art, because they are made with the express purpose of entertaining the player, and all other goals must be subservient to that one, in order for it to be a good game. Art can exist solely for its own sake. A game must be fun, first and foremost. Movies and theatre and music can be completely self-indulgent twaddle that no one would ever want to partake of, but still be art. Conversely, a shitty game is a shitty game, no matter what labels you try to stick on it.
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Well said.
 
Electric Grave

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One thing is for sure, there is art in video games in lots of different forms. To me a video game can be art but that's because I'm passionate about them. People that think other wise for the most part are not that passionate about the games anyway, so as much as they're entitled to their opinion it still doesn't hold much value to people that are truly fond of video games.

Edit Note: Deuce, There has been games made to indulge the creators without consent of entertaining the consumer, just 'cause Kojima doesn't think so it doesn't mean it's true, but you should know that.
 
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SML

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Fantomas said:
Edit Note: Deuce, There has been games made to indulge the creators without consent of entertaining the consumer, just 'cause Kojima doesn't think so it doesn't mean it's true, but you should know that.
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Frictional games (Penumbra series) explicitly work against gameplay-orientation in their work.

The reason Braid approaches art is that its form (gameplay) conveys its theme. I'm applying literary standards here, but if a work is mimetic and engaging in the delivery of a perennial theme, that work is art.

The closes literary analogue to Braid might be "The Road not Taken" by Frost.

Are any games at least as good as Beyond the Valley of the Dolls?
 
Late

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StickmanLoser said:
Frictional games (Penumbra series) explicitly work against gameplay-orientation in their work.

The reason Braid approaches art is that its form (gameplay) conveys its theme. I'm applying literary standards here, but if a work is mimetic and engaging in the delivery of a perennial theme, that work is art.

The closes literary analogue to Braid might be "The Road not Taken" by Frost.

Are any games at least as good as Beyond the Valley of the Dolls?
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You are applaying linguist themes to games, too high-brow imo

Games are trash/entertainment

*edit*

Literary criticism has ruined a whole lot of novels for me, arse.
 
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evil wasabi

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Late said:
You are applaying linguist themes to games, too high-brow imo

Games are trash/entertainment
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Calling games trash reminds me of comics. Are comic books art? Archie and Jughead maybe not. But I feel like Sandman was art, and very entertaining at the same time. For the most part, we have a lot of people from the older generation who cannot connect with the new. They can't adapt. Ebert is one of those types. It's ok. He's old. He'll be dead soon.
 
Late

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wasabi said:
Calling games trash reminds me of comics. Are comic books art? Archie and Jughead maybe not. But I feel like Sandman was art, and very entertaining at the same time. For the most part, we have a lot of people from the older generation who cannot connect with the new. They can't adapt. Ebert is one of those types. It's ok. He's old. He'll be dead soon.
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Imo art is an expression of the human soul, in its best possible form. Games are games. Sandman is a nice offshoot of the comic industry that closes in on art, tbh.

Bach and Mozart are art, Queens of the stone age are not.

That is just me.
 
Takumaji

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In my opinion, games are composed of individual pieces of art like graphics, music, sound f/x or writing/storytelling but generally aren't art themselves. Of course there are exceptions to the rule where the developers of a game try to go beyond the realm of simple playability and entertainment and add another dimension to the whole thing. Rez is one example for a game like that.

Then again, who cares, they're a fun way of wasting time and that's all I'm interested in. If a game comes with great artwork and music, the better, but I can live with less art if it's fun to play.
 
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